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The truth is that it's not possible to to push renewable electricity generation up to arbitrary levels by just continuing to build more and more of them, especi

by makomk 4y ago

The truth is that it's not possible to to push renewable electricity generation up to arbitrary levels by just continuing to build more and more of them, especially with the mix that Germany ended up going with, because not only are they intermittent but every solar panel produces electrity at basically the same time and stops producing at basically the same time and the same with wind. This means that eventually, extra renewable generation mostly just cannabalizes the existing renewable generation by producing at the same time as them and forcing it to shut down in order not to overwhelm the grid rather than replacing non-renewable generation. This causes a rapid explosion in cost, and those costs ultimately have to be paid for by the public somehow whether that's via high energy bills or increased taxes. Germany's renewable energy mix was particularly bad in this regard because they had a lot of solar which is cheap on paper but isn't useful that far north in the winter when energy demand is at its highest.

nforgerit 4y ago
No from my understanding that's the old thinking with power plants like nuclear and coal that cannot be easily switched on and off. Peaks in renewable generation would go into electrolysis to produce hydrogen which can "save" the surplus energy the same way we're heaping up natural gas to be used in times when the sun is not shining and when in addition there's no wind. Plus there are industrial processes that cannot (yet) be based on electric energy and need to run based on hydrogen or derivatives. In addition we can save surplus renewable energy locally, regionally and in neighbor countries (e.g. Norway with its pumped hydroelectric energy storage). This has been backed by several studies but was critically dependent on scaling up renewables massively. With the latter we failed, for political reasons.
- fomine3 4y ago
  So energy storage and hydrogen producing is worth for both nuclear/coal and renewable

by makomk 4y ago

nforgerit 4y ago

No from my understanding that's the old thinking with power plants like nuclear and coal that cannot be easily switched on and off. Peaks in renewable generation would go into electrolysis to produce hydrogen which can "save" the surplus energy the same way we're heaping up natural gas to be used in times when the sun is not shining and when in addition there's no wind. Plus there are industrial processes that cannot (yet) be based on electric energy and need to run based on hydrogen or derivatives. In addition we can save surplus renewable energy locally, regionally and in neighbor countries (e.g. Norway with its pumped hydroelectric energy storage). This has been backed by several studies but was critically dependent on scaling up renewables massively. With the latter we failed, for political reasons.

fomine3 4y ago
So energy storage and hydrogen producing is worth for both nuclear/coal and renewable